He learnt to play chess from his mother Susheela when he was six years old.

Viswanathan Anand, who is commonly known as Vishy Anand, went on to become the World Number One and chess World Champion.

In 1984, at just 15, Vishy Anand was the youngest Indian to earn the IM title and three years later he became the first Indian Grandmaster.

In 2000, he beat Shirov to become the FIDE World Chess Champion.

In 2006, Vishy Anand became the first chess player to win the Corus tournament five times. His victory at Corus brought his ELO rating up to 2805, thereby becoming only the fourth chess player to be rated over 2800 - the others being Kasparov, Kramnik and Topalov.

In 2007, Anand's victory at Linares also brought him the FIDE World No.1 Ranking.

On 29 September 2007 in Mexico City, Anand became World Champion for the second time in his career.

In October 2008, Vishy Anand successfully defended his chess world champion crown against Vladimir Kramnik.

Vishy Anand is fluent in Spanish and German and is a fan of Monty Python.

Anand is a spokesperson for Vidyasagar, an NGO that works on behalf of children with cerebral palsy and he also represents Avahan, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation initiative on AIDS.

Vishy Anand is married to Aruna.

In an interesting interview with Vishy Anand, published on Chessbase, he revealed how he listens to his opponent's breathing, looking out for signs of agitation.

In 2012, Vishy Anand retained his world championship crown after beating Boris Gelfand in a tie-break. The match itself was drawn at 6-6 but Anand won the rapid games tie-break by 2.5 to 1.5.

In 2013, Anand finally lost out in a battle for the world championship when he was defeated 6.5 - 3.5 by Magnus Carlsen.

In spite of some poor form after losing the title, Anand bounced back and won the FIDE candidates tournament in March 2014 and so gained the right to take on Carlsen to win back the world title, however in November 2014, Carlsen once again defeated Anand - this time by 6.5 to 4.5.

Trivia
He is the only future world champion to have competed in the British Chess Championship.